Although it might not seem unusual today, the achievement of this film seems to me to be the way that it naturalizes sexuality and creates an open atmosphere where all questions, no matter how misguided, draw serious adult attention. Unlike Molly Grows Up, staged in the midst of the nuclear family, As Boys Grow shows sex education for boys as a team effort supervised by a fatherly coach figure. As Boys Grow, produced in the relatively liberal San Francisco Bay Area, presents regular boys asking regular questions and contains frank discussion of such topics as nocturnal emissions. It was unusual to show children speaking relatively freely about sexuality, and because of the necessity of educating girls about menstruation, more addressed girls than boys. Most of these films concentrated on the physiology of sex and reproduction and were replete with animated 'plumbing' diagrams. Prior to the period of frankness that began in the mid-1960s, relatively few sex education films were actually produced in the United States. The coach is the authority figure and teacher. Deals with sexual organs, masturbation, wet dreams, and other male issues. Sex education film geared for teenage boys.
Sex education film aimed at teenage boys, with the coach as authority figure and teacher.
